
Class C .y I- 



Book .IDfeM^ 



35? 3To|m ffiuiv 


MY FIRST SUMMER IN THE SIERRA. Illus- 
trated. 


STICKEEN : The Story of a Dog. 


OUR NATIONAL PARKS. Illustrated Holiday 
Edition. 


HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 


Boston a.nx> New York 



STICKEEK 



/ 



TICKEEJV 



BY 

JOHN zJMUIR 

w 




Boston &? New York 
Houghton Mifflin Company 



19 1 3 






-#<" 



fS*> 



COPYRIGHT, 19OQ, BY JOHN MUIR 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

Published March iqoq 



7-ansfer 

Army and Navy Cub 

March i 



rO 



TO 

HELEN MUIR 

Lover ofwildness 

this icy storm-story 

is affectionately 

dedicated 

r 



TO MY DOG BLANCO 

BY J. G. HOLLAND 

My dear dumb friend, low lying there, 
A willing vassal at my feet ; 

Glad partner of my home and fare, 
My shadow in the street ; 

I look into your great brown eyes, 
Where love and loyal homage shine, 

And wonder where the difference lies 
Between your soul and mine ! 



I scan the whole broad earth around 
For that one heart which, leal and true, 

Bears friendship without end or bound, 
And find the prize in you. 



Ah, Blanco ! did I worship God 
As truly as you worship me, 

Or follow where my Master trod 
With your humility : 



Did I sit fondly at His feet 

As you, dear Blanco, sit at mine, 

And watch Him with a love as sweet ? 
My life would grow divine ! 



STICKEEN 



STICKEEN 

IN the summer of 1880 I set out 
from Fort Wrangel in a canoe to 
continue the exploration of the icy 
region of southeastern Alaska, be- 
gun in the fall of 1879. After the 
necessary provisions, blankets, etc., 
had been collected and stowed away, 
and my Indian crew were in their 
places ready to start, while a crowd 
of their relatives and friends on the 
wharf were bidding them good-by 
and good-luck, my companion, the 
Rev. S. H. Young, for whom we 
were waiting, at last came aboard, 
followed by a little black dog, that 

C 3 3 



Si :n 

immediately made himself at home 
" : urling up in a hollow among the 
baggage. I like dogs, but this one 
seemed so small and worthless that I 
objected to his going, and asked the 
missionary w^hy he was taking him. 

• Such a little helpless creatine 
will only be in the way," I said; «you 
had better pass him up to the Indian 
boys on the wharf, to be taken home 
to play with the children. This trip is 
not likely to be good for toy-dogs. 
The poor silly thing will be in rain 
and snow for weeks or months, and 
require care like a baby."" 
But his master assured me that 
he would be no trouble at all; that he 

CO 



Stickeen 

was a perfect wonder of a dog, could 
endure cold and hunger like a bear, 
swim like a seal, and was wondrous 
wise and cunning, etc., making out a 
list of virtues to show he might be the 
most interestingmember of the party. 
Nobody could hope to unravel the 
lines of his ancestry. In all the won- 
derfully mixed and varied dog-tribe 
I never saw any creature very much 
like him, though in some of his sly, 
soft, gliding motions and gestures 
he brought the fox to mind. He was 
short-legged and bunchy-bodied, and 
his hair, though smooth, was long 
and silky and slightly waved, so that 
when the wind was at his back it ruf- 
C5 ] 



Stickeen 

fled, making him lookshaggy. At first 
sight his only noticeable feature was 
his fine tail, which was about as airy 
and shady as a squirrel's, and was car- 
ried curling forward almost to his 
nose. On closer inspection you might 
notice his thin sensitive ears, and sharp 
eyes with cunning tan-spots above 
them. Mr. Young told me that when 
the little fellow was a pup about the 
size of a woodrat he w r as presented to 
his wife by an Irish prospector at 
Sitka, and that on his arrival at Fort 
Wrangel he w r as adopted with enthus- 
iasm by the Stickeen Indians as a sort 
of new r good-luck totem, was named 
"Stickeen" for the tribe, and became 
C 6 ] 



Stickeen 

a universal favorite; petted, protected, 
and admired wherever he went, and 
regarded as a mysterious fountain of 
wisdom. 

On our trip he soon proved himself 
a queer character — odd, concealed, 
independent, keepinginvinciblyquiet, 
and doing many little puzzling things 
that piqued my curiosity. As we sailed 
week after week through the long in- 
tricate channels and inlets among the 
innumerable islands and mountains 
of the coast, he spent most of the dull 
days in sluggish ease, motionless, and 
apparently as unobserving as if in 
deep sleep. But I discovered that 
somehow he always knew what was 

I 7 3 



Stickeen 

going on. When the Indians were 
about to shoot at ducks or seals, or 
when anything along the shore was 
exciting our attention, he would rest 
his chin on the edge of the canoe and 
calmly look out like a dreamy-eyed 
tourist. And when he heard us talking 
about making a landing, he immedi- 
ately roused himself to see what sort 
of a place we were coming to, and made 
ready to jump overboard and swim 
ashore as soon as the canoe neared the 
beach. Then, with a vigorous shake to 
get rid of the brine in his hair, he ran 
into the woods to hunt small game. 
But though always the first out of the 
canoe, he was always the last to get 

[8 3 



Stickeen 

into it. When we were ready to start 
he could never be found, and refused 
to come to our call. We soon found 
out, however, that though we could 
not see him at such times, he saw us, 
and from the cover of the briers and 
huckleberry bushes in the fringe of 
the woods was watching the canoe 
with wary eye. For as soon as we were 
fairly off he came trotting down the 
beach, plunged into the surf, and swam 
after us, knowing well that we would 
cease rowing and take him in. When 
the contrary little vagabond came 
alongside, he was lifted by the neck, 
held at arm's length a moment to drip, 
and dropped aboard. We tried to cure 

CO 



Stickeen 

him of this trick by compelling him 
to swim a long way, as if we had a 
mind to abandon him ; but this did no 
good : the longer the swim the better 
he seemed to like it. 

Though capable of great idleness, 
he never failed to be ready for all sorts 
of adventures and excursions. One 
pitch-dark rainy night we landed 
about ten o'clock at the mouth of a 
salmon stream when the water was 
phosphorescent. The salmon were 
running, and the myriad fins of the 
onrushing multitude were churning 
all the stream into a silvery glow, 
wonderfully beautiful and impressive 
in the ebon darkness. To get a good 

c 10 i 



Stickeen 

view of the show I set out with one of 
the Indians and sailed up through the 
midst of it to the foot of a rapid about 
half a mile from camp, where the swift 
current dashing over rocks made the 
luminous glow most glorious. Hap- 
pening to look backdown the stream, 
while the Indian was catching a few 
of the struggling fish, I saw a long 
spreading fan of light like the tail of 
a comet, which we thought must be 
made by some big strange animal that 
was pursuing us. On it came with its 
magnificent train, until we imagined 
we could see the monster's head and 
eyes ; but it was only Stickeen, who, 
finding I had left the camp, came 

t » 3 



Stickeen 

swimming after me to see what was 
up. 

When we camped early, the best 
hunter of the crew usually went to 
the woods for a deer, and Stickeen 
was sure to be at his heels, provided 
I had not gone out. For, strange to 
say, though I never carried a gun, he 
always followed me, forsaking the 
hunter and even his master to share 
my wanderings. The days that were 
too stormy for sailing I spent in the 
woods, or on the adjacent mountains, 
wherever my studies called me; and 
Stickeen always insisted on going 
with me, however wild the weather, 
gliding like a fox through dripping 



Stickeen 

huckleberry bushes and thorny tan- 
gles of panax and rubus, scarce stir- 
ring their rain-laden leaves; wading 
and wallowing through snow, swim- 
ming icy streams, skipping over logs 
and rocks and the crevasses of gla- 
ciers with the patience and endurance 
of a determined mountaineer, never 
tiringor gettingdiscouraged. Once he 
followed me over a glacier the surface 
of which was so crusty and rough that 
it cut his feet until every step was 
marked with blood; but he trotted on 
with Indian fortitude until I noticed 
his red track, and, taking pity on him, 
made him a set of moccasins out of 
a handkerchief. However great his 

c is n 



Stickee?i 

troubles he never asked help or made 
any complaint, as if, like a philoso- 
pher, he had learned that without 
hard work and suffering there could 
be no pleasure worth having. 

Yet none of us was able to make 
out what Stickeen was really good for. 
He seemed to meet danger and hard- 
ships without anything like reason, 
insisted on having his own way, never 
obeyed an order, and the hunter could 
never set him on anything, or make 
him fetch the birds he shot. His equa- 
nimity was so steady it seemed due 
to want of feeling: ordinary storms 
were pleasures to him , and as for mere 
rain, he flourished in it like a vegetable. 
C 14 ] 



Stickeen 

No matter what advances you might 
make, scarce a glance or a tail-wag 
would you get for your pains. But 
though he was apparently as cold as 
a glacier and about as impervious to 
fun, I tried hard to make his acquaint- 
ance, guessing there must be some- 
thing worth while hidden beneath so 
much courage, endurance, and love of 
wild-weathery adventure. No super- 
annuated mastiff or bulldog grown old 
in office surpassed this fluffy midget in 
stoic dignity. He sometimes reminded 
me of a small, squat, unshakable de- 
sert cactus. For he never displayed a 
single trace of the merry, tricksy,elfish 
fun of the terriers and collies that we 

c 15 n 



Stickeen 

all know, nor of their touching affec- 
tion and devotion. Like children, most 
small dogs beg to be loved and al- 
lowed to love ; but Stickeen seemed a 
very Diogenes, asking only to be let 
alone : a true child of the wilderness, 
holding the even tenor of his hidden 
life with the silence and serenity of 
nature. His strength of character lay 
in his eyes. They looked as old as the 
hills, and as young, and as wild. I 
never tired of looking into them : it 
was like looking into a landscape; 
but they were small and rather deep- 
set, and had no explaining lines 
around them to give out particulars. I 
was accustomed to look into the faces 

c: is *} 



Stickeen 

of plants and animals, and I watched 
the little sphinx more and more keenly 
as an interesting study. But there is 
no estimating the wit and wisdom 
concealed and latent in our lower fel- 
low mortals until made manifest by 
profound experiences ; forit isthrough 
suffering that dogs as well as saints 
are developed and made perfect. 

After we had explored the Sundum 
and Tahkoo fiords and their glaciers, 
we sailed through Stephen's Passage 
into Lynn Canal and thence through 
Icy Strait into Cross Sound, searching 
for unexplored inlets leading toward 
the great fountain ice-fields of the 
Fairweather Range. Here, while the 
t 17 ] 



Stickeen 

tide was in our favor, we were accom- 
panied by a fleet of icebergs drifting 
out to the ocean from Glacier Bay. 
Slowly we paddled around Vancou- 
ver's Point, Wimbleton, our frail ca- 
noe tossed like a feather on the mas- 
sive heaving swells coming in past 
Cape Spenser. For miles the sound is 
bounded by precipitous mural cliffs, 
which, lashed with wave-spray and 
their heads hidden in clouds, looked 
terribly threatening and stern. Had 
our canoe been crushed or upset we 
could have made no landing here, for 
the cliffs, as high as those of Yosemite, 
sink sheer into deep water. Eagerly 
we scanned the wall on the north side 



Stickeen 

for the first sign of an opening fiord 
or harbor, all of us anxious except 
Stickeen, who dozed in peace or gazed 
dreamily at the tremendous preci- 
pices when he heard us talking about 
them. At length we made the joyful 
discovery of the mouth of the inlet 
now called "Taylor Bay," and about 
five o'clock reached the head of it and 
encamped in a spruce grove near the 
front of a large glacier. 

While camp was being made, Joe 
the hunter climbed the mountain wall 
on the east side of the fiord in pursuit 
of wild goats, while Mr. Young and I 
went to the glacier. We found that it 
is separated from the waters of the in- 



Stickeen 

let by a tide- washed moraine, and ex- 
tends, an abrupt barrier, all the way 
across from wall to wall of the inlet, 
a distance of about three miles. But 
our most interesting discovery was 
that it had recently advanced, though 
again slightly receding. A portion of 
the terminal moraine had been plowed 
up and shoved forward, uprooting and 
overwhelming the woods on the east 
side. Many of the trees were down 
and buried, or nearly so, others were 
leaning away from the ice-cliffs, ready 
to fall, and some stood erect, with the 
bottom of the ice-plow still beneath 
their roots and its lofty crystal spires 
towering high above their tops. The 

t 20 } 



Stickeen 

spectacle presented by these century- 
old trees standing close beside a spiry 
wall of ice, with their branches al- 
most touching it, was most novel and 
striking. And when I climbed around 
the front, and a little way up the west 
side of the glacier, I found that it had 
swelled and increased in height and 
width in accordance with its advance, 
and carried away the outer ranks of 
trees on its bank. 

On our way back to camp after 
these first observations I planned a 
far-and-wide excursion for the mor- 
row. I awoke early, called not only 
by the glacier, which had been on my 
mind all night, but by a grand flood- 



Stickeen 

storm. The wind was blowing a gale 
from the north and the rain was fly- 
ing with the clouds in a wide passion- 
ate horizontal flood, as if it were all 
passing over the country instead of 
falling on it. The main perennial 
streams were booming high above 
their banks, and hundreds of new 
ones, roaring like the sea, almost cov- 
ered the lofty gray walls of the inlet 
with white cascades and falls. I had 
intended making a cup of coffee and 
getting something like a breakfast 
before starting, but when I heard the 
storm and looked out I made haste to 
join it; for many of Nature's finest 
lessons are to be found in her storms, 



Stickeen 

and if careful to keep in right rela- 
tions with them, we may go safely 
abroad with them, rejoicing in the 
grandeur and beauty of their works 
and ways, and chanting with the old 
Norsemen, "The blast of the tem- 
pest aids our oars, the hurricane is 
our servant and drives us whither we 
wish to go." So, omitting breakfast, 
I put a piece of bread in my pocket 
and hurried away. 

Mr. Young and the Indians were 
asleep, and so, I hoped, was Stickeen ; 
but I had not gone a dozen rods before 
he left his bed in the tent and came 
boring through the blast after me. 
That a man should welcome storms 
I 23 ] 



Stickeen 

for their exhilarating music and mo- 
tion, and go forth to see God making 
landscapes, is reasonable enough ; 
but what fascination could there be in 
such tremendous weather for a dog? 
Surely nothing akin to human enthusi- 
asm for scenery or geology. Anyhow, 
on he came, breakfastless, through 
the choking blast. I stopped and did 
my best to turn him back. "Now 
don't," I said, shouting to make my- 
self heard in the storm, "now don't, 
Stickeen. What has got into your 
queer noddle now ? You must be daft. 
This wild day has nothing for you. 
There is no game abroad, nothing but 
weather. Go back to camp and keep 
[ 24 ] 



Stickeen 

warm, get a good breakfast with your 
master, and be sensible for once. I 
can't carry you all day or feed you, 
and this storm will kill you." 

But Nature, it seems, was at the 
bottom of the affair, and she gains her 
ends with dogs as well as with men, 
making us do as she likes, shoving 
and pulling us along her ways, how- 
ever rough, all but killing us at times 
in getting her lessons driven hard 
home. After I had stopped again and 
again, shouting good warning advice, 
I saw that he was not to be shaken 
off; as well might the earth try to 
shake off the moon. I had once led his 
master into trouble, when he fell on 
t *5 H 



Stickeen 

one of the topmost jags of a mountain 
and dislocated his arm; now the turn 
of his humble companion was com- 
ing. The pitiful little wanderer just 
stood there in the wind, drenched and 
blinking, saying doggedly, *« Where 
thou goest I will go." So at last I told 
him to come on if he must, and gave 
him a piece of the bread I had in my 
pocket; then we struggled on to- 
gether, and thus began the most 
memorable of all my wild days. 

The level flood, driving hard in our 
faces, thrashed and washed us wildly 
until we got into the shelter of a 
grove on the east side of the glacier 
near the front, where we stopped 

t * 6 3 



Stickeen 

awhile for breath and to listen and 
look out. The exploration of the gla- 
cier was my main object, but the wind 
was too high to allow excursions over 
its open surface, where one might be 
dangerously shoved while balancing 
for a jump on the brink of a crevasse. 
In the mean time the storm was a fine 
study. Here the end of the glacier, 
descending an abrupt swell of resist- 
ing rock about five hundred feet high, 
leans forward and falls in ice cascades. 
And as the storm came down the gla- 
cier from the North, Stickeen and I 
were beneath the main current of the 
blast, while favorably located to see 
and hear it. What a psalm the storm 
l 27 H 



Stickeen 

was singing, and how fresh the smell 
of the washed earth and leaves, and 
how sweet the still small voices of 
the storm! Detached wafts and swirls 
were coming through the woods, with 
music from the leaves and branches 
and furrowed boles, and even from 
the splintered rocks and ice-crags 
overhead, many of the tones soft and 
low and flute-like, as if each leaf and 
tree, crag and spire were a tuned reed. 
A broad torrent, draining the side of 
the glacier, now swollen by scores 
of new streams from the mountains, 
was rolling boulders along its rocky 
channel, with thudding, bumping, 
muffled sounds, rushing towards the 



Stickeen 

bay with tremendous energy, as if in 
haste to get out of the mountains ; the 
waters above and beneath calling to 
each other, and all to the ocean, their 
home. 

Looking southward from our shel- 
ter, we had this great torrent and the 
forested mountain wall above it on 
our left, the spiry ice-crags on our 
right, and smooth gray gloom ahead. 
I tried to draw the marvelous scene 
in my note-book, but the rain blurred 
the page in spite of all my pains to 
shelter it, and the sketch was almost 
worthless. When the wind began to 
abate, I traced the east side of the 
glacier. All the trees standing on the 
C 29 ] 



Stickeen 

edge of the woods were barked and 
bruised, showing high-ice mark in a 
very telling way, while tens of thou- 
sands of those that had stood for centu- 
ries on the bank of the glacier farther 
out lay crushed and being crushed. In 
many places I could see down fifty 
feet or so beneath the margin of the 
glacier-mill, where trunks from one 
to two feet in diameter were being 
ground to pulp against outstanding 
rock-ribs and bosses of the bank. 

About three miles above the front 
of the glacier I climbed to the surface 
of it by means of axe-steps made easy 
for Stickeen. As far as the eye could 
reach, the level, or nearly level, gla- 
C3CO 



Stickeen 

cier stretched away indefinitely be- 
neath the gray sky, a seemingly 
boundless prairie of ice. The rain con- 
tinued, and grew colder, which I did 
not mind, but a dim snowy look in 
the drooping clouds made me hesitate 
about venturing far from land. No 
trace of the west shore w r as visible, 
and in case the clouds should settle 
and give snow, or the wind again be- 
come violent, I feared getting caught 
in a tangle of crevasses. Snow-crys- 
tals, the flowers of the mountain 
clouds, are frail, beautiful things, but 
terrible when flying on storm-winds 
in darkening, benumbing swarms, or, 
when welded together into glaciers 
C 31 ] 



Stickeen 

full of deadly crevasses. Watching 
the weather, I sauntered about on the 
crystal sea. For a mile or two out I 
found the ice remarkably safe. The 
marginal crevasses were mostly nar- 
row, while the few wider ones were 
easily avoided by passing around 
them, and the clouds began to open 
here and there. 

Thus encouraged, I at last pushed 
out for the other side; for Nature can 
make us do anything she likes. At first 
we made rapid progress, and the sky 
was not very threatening, while I took 
bearings occasionally with a pocket 
compass to enable me to find my way 
back more surely in case the storm 

C 32 ] 



Stickeen 

should become blinding; but the 
structure lines of the glacier were my 
main guide. Toward the west side we 
came to a closely crevassed section in 
which we had to make long, narrow 
tacks and doublings, tracing the edges 
of tremendous transverse and longi- 
tudinal crevasses, many of which 
were from twenty to thirty feet wide, 
and perhaps a thousand feet deep — 
beautiful and awful. In working a 
way through them I was severely 
cautious, but Stickeen came on as un- 
hesitating as the flying clouds. The 
widest crevasse that I could jump he 
would leap without so much as halt- 
ing to take a look at it. The weather 
C 33 } 



Stickeen 

was now making quick changes, scat- 
tering bits of dazzling brightness 
through the wintry gloom ; at rare 
intervals, when the sun broke forth 
wholly free, the glacier was seen from 
shore to shore with a bright array of 
encompassing mountains partly re- 
vealed, wearing the clouds as gar- 
ments, while the prairie bloomed and 
sparkled with irised light from my- 
riads of washed crystals. Then sud- 
denly all the glorious show would be 
darkened and blotted out. 

Stickeen seemed to care for none 

, of these things, bright or dark, nor 

for the crevasses, wells, moulins, or 

swift flashing streams into which he 



Stickeen 

might fall. The little adventurer was 
only about two years old, yet no- 
thing seemed novel to him, nothing 
daunted him. He showed neither cau- 
tion nor curiosity, wonder nor fear, 
but bravely trotted on as if glaciers 
were playgrounds. His stout, muf- 
fled body seemed all one skipping 
muscle, and it was truly wonderful to 
see how swiftly and to all appearance 
heedlessly he flashed across nerve- 
trying chasms six or eight feet wide. 
His courage was so unwavering that 
it seemed to be due to dullness of 
perception, as if he were only blindly 
bold; and I kept warning him to be 
careful. For we had been close com- 
t 35 ] 



Stickeen 

panions on so many wilderness trips 
that I had formed the habit of talking 
to him as if he were a boy and under- 
stood every word. 

We gained the west shore in about 
three hours ; the width of the glacier 
here being about seven miles. Then I 
pushed northward in order to see as 
far back as possible into the fountains 
of the Fairweather Mountains, in case 
the clouds should rise. The walking 
was easy along the margin of the 
forest, which, of course, like that on 
the other side, had been invaded and 
crushed by the swollen, overflowing 
glacier. In an hour or so, after pass- 
ing a massive headland, we came 
l 36 ] 



Stickeen 

suddenly on a branch of the glacier, 
which, in the form of a magnificent 
ice-cascade two miles wide, was pour- 
ing over the rim of the main basin in a 
westerly direction, its surface broken 
into wave-shaped blades and shat- 
tered blocks, suggesting the wildest 
updashing, heaving, plunging motion 
of a great river cataract. Tracing it 
down three or four miles, I found that 
it discharged into a lake, filling it with 
icebergs. 

I would gladly have followed the 
lake outlet to tide- water, but the day 
was already far spent, and the threat- 
ening sky called for haste on the re- 
turn trip to get off the ice before dark. 
C 37 1 



Stickeen 

I decided therefore to go no farther, 
and, after taking a general view of the 
wonderful region, turned back, hop- 
ing to see it again under more favor- 
able auspices. We made good speed 
up the canon of the great ice-torrent, 
and out on the main glacier until we 
had left the west shore about two 
miles behind us. Here we got into a 
difficult network of crevasses, the 
gathering clouds began to drop misty 
fringes, and soon the dreaded snow 
came flying thick and fast. I now 
began to feel anxious about finding a 
way in the blurring storm. Stickeen 
showed no trace of fear. He was still 
the same silent, able little hero. I no- 
[ 38 ] 



Stickeen 

ticed, however, that after the storm- 
darkness came on he kept close up 
behind me. The snow urged us to 
make still greater haste, but at the 
same time hid our way. I pushed on 
as best I could, jumping innumerable 
crevasses, and for every hundred rods 
or so of direct advance traveling a 
mile in doubling up and down in the 
turmoil of chasms and dislocated ice- 
blocks. After an hour or two of this 
work we came to a series of longi- 
tudinal crevasses of appalling width, 
and almost straight and regular in 
trend, like immense furrows. These 
I traced with firm nerve, excited and 
strengthened by the danger, making 
C39] 



Stickeen 

wide jumps, poising cautiously on 
their dizzy edges after cutting hol- 
lows for my feet before making the 
spring, to avoid possible slipping or 
any uncertainty on the farther sides, 
where only one trial is granted — ex- 
ercise at once frightful and inspiring. 
Stickeen followed seemingly without 
effort. 

Many a mile we thus traveled, 
mostly up and down, making but lit- 
tle real headway in crossing, running 
instead of walking most of the time 
as the danger of being compelled to 
spend the night on the glacier be- 
came threatening. Stickeen seemed 
able for anything. Doubtless we could 
C 40 1 



Stickeen 

have weathered the storm for one 
night, dancing on a flat spot to keep 
from freezing, and I faced the threat 
without feeling anything like despair; 
but we were hungry and wet, and the 
wind from the mountains was still 
thick with snow and bitterly cold, 
so of course that night would have 
seemed a very long one. I could not 
see far enough through the blur- 
ring snow to judge in which gen- 
eral direction the least dangerous 
route lay, while the few dim, momen- 
tary glimpses I caught of mountains 
through rifts in the flying clouds were 
far from encouraging either as wea- 
ther signs or as guides. I had simply 

C 41 3 



Stickeen 

to grope my way from crevasse to 
crevasse, holding a general direction 
by the ice-structure, which was not 
to be seen everywhere, and partly by 
the wind. Again and again I was put 
to my mettle, but Stickeen followed 
easily, his nerve apparently growing 
more unflinching as the danger in- 
creased. So it always is with moun- 
taineers when hard beset. Running 
hard and jumping, holding every 
minute of the remaining daylight, 
poor as it was, precious, we dog- 
gedly persevered and tried to hope 
that every difficult crevasse we over- 
came would prove to be the last of 
its kind. But on the contrary, as we 
[42 H 



Stickeen 

advanced they became more deadly 
trying. 

At length our way was barred by 
a very wide and straight crevasse, 
w T hich I traced rapidly northward a 
mile or so without finding a crossing 
or hope of one; then down the gla- 
cier about as far, to where it united 
with another uncrossable crevasse. 
In all this distance of perhaps two 
miles there was only one place where 
I could possibly jump it, but the width 
of this jump was the utmost I dared 
attempt, while the danger of slipping 
on the farther side was so great that I 
was loath to try it. Furthermore, the 
side I was on was about a foot higher 

C 43 3 



Stickeen 

than the other, and even with this ad* 
vantage the crevasse seemed danger 
ously wide. One is liable to underes^ 
timate the width of crevasses where 
the magnitudes in general are great. 
I therefore stared at this one mighty 
keenly, estimating its width and the 
shape of the edge on the farther side, 
until I thought that I could jump it if 
necessary, but that in case I should be 
compelled to jump back from the 
lower side I might fail. Now, a cau- 
tious mountaineer seldom takes a step 
on unknown ground which seems at 
all dangerous that he cannot retrace 
in case he should be stopped by un- 
seen obstacles ahead. This is the rule 
[ 44 ] 



Stickeen 

of mountaineers who live long, and, 
though in haste, I compelled myself 
to sit down and calmly deliberate be- 
fore I broke it. 

Retracing my devious path in im- 
agination as if it were drawn on a 
chart, I saw that I was recrossing the 
glacier a mile or two farther up 
stream than the course pursued in the 
morning, and that I was now entan- 
gled in a section I had not before seen. 
Should I risk this dangerous jump, or 
try to regain the woods on the west 
shore, make a fire, and have only 
hunger to endure while waiting for a 
new day? I had already crossed so 
broad a stretch of dangerous ice that 
C45 ] 



Stickeen 

I saw it would be difficult to get back 
to the woods through the storm, be- 
fore dark, and the attempt would 
most likely result in a dismal night- 
dance on the glacier; while just be- 
yond the present barrier the surface 
seemed more promising, and the east 
shore was now perhaps about as near 
as the west. I was therefore eager to 
go on. But this wide jump was a 
dreadful obstacle. 

At length, because of the dangers 
already behind me, I determined to 
venture against those that might be 
ahead, jumped and landed well, but 
with so little to spare that I more than 
ever dreaded being compelled to take 
C 46 ] 



Stickeen 

that jump back from the lower side, 
Stickeen followed, making nothing of 
it, and we ran eagerly forward, hop- 
ing we were leaving all our troubles 
behind. But within the distance of a 
few hundred yards we were stopped by 
the widest crevasse yet encountered. 
Of course I made haste to explore it, 
hoping all might yet be remedied 
by finding a bridge or a way around 
either end. About three-fourths of a 
mile upstream I found that it united 
with the one we had just crossed, as 
I feared it would. Then, tracing it 
down, I found it joined the same cre- 
vasse at the lower end also, maintain- 
ing throughout its whole course a 
C 47 ] 



Stickeen 

width of forty to fifty feet. Thus to 
my dismay I discovered that we were 
on a narrow island about two miles 
long, with two barely possible ways 
of escape : one back by the way we 
came, the other ahead by an almost 
inaccessible sliver-bridge that crossed 
the great crevasse from near the mid- 
dle of it! 

After this nerve-trying discovery 
I ran back to the sliver-bridge and 
cautiously examined it. Crevasses, 
caused by strains from variations in 
the rate of motion of different parts 
of the glacier and convexities in the 
channel, are mere cracks when they 
first open, so narrow as hardly to ad- 
[48 *] 



Stickeen 

mit the blade of a pocket-knife, and 
gradually widen according to the ex- 
tent of the strain and the depth of the 
glacier. Now some of these cracks are 
interrupted, like the cracks in wood, 
and in opening, the strip of ice be- 
tween overlapping ends is dragged 
out, and may maintain a continuous 
connection between the sides, just 
as the two sides of a slivered crack 
in wood that is being split are con- 
nected. Some crevasses remain open 
for months or even years, and by the 
melting of their sides continue to in- 
crease in width long after the opening 
strain has ceased; while the sliver- 
bridges, level on top at first and per- 
il 49 3 



Stickeen 

fectly safe, are at length melted to 
thin, vertical, knife-edged blades, the 
upper portion being most exposed to 
the weather ; and since the exposure 
is greatest in the middle, they at 
length curve downward like the ca- 
bles of suspension bridges. This one 
was evidently very old, for it had been 
weathered and wasted until it was the 
most dangerous and inaccessible that 
ever lay in my way. The width of the 
crevasse was here about fifty feet, and 
the sliver crossing diagonally was 
about seventy feet long; its thin knife- 
edge near the middle was depressed 
twenty-five or thirty feet below the 
level of the glacier, and the upcurving 



Stickeen 

ends were attached to the sides eight 
or ten feet below the brink. Getting 
down the nearly vertical wall to the 
end of the sliver and up the other side 
were the main difficulties, and they 
seemed all but insurmountable. Of the 
many perils encountered in my years 
of wandering on mountains and gla- 
ciers none seemed so plain and stern 
and merciless as this. And it was pre- 
sented when we were wet to the skin 
and hungry, the sky dark with quick 
driving snow, and the night near. 
But we were forced to face it. It was 
a tremendous necessity. 

Beginning, not immediately above 
the sunken end of the bridge, but a 



Stickeen 

little to one side, I cut a deep hollow 
on the brink for my knees to rest in. 
Then, leaning over, with my short- 
handled axe I cut a step sixteen or 
eighteen inches below, which on ac- 
count of the sheerness of the wall was 
necessarily shallow. That step, how- 
ever, was well made; its floor sloped 
slightly inward and formed a good 
hold for my heels. Then, slipping 
cautiously upon it, and crouching as 
low as possible, with my left side 
toward the wall, I steadied myself 
against the wind with my left hand in 
a slight notch, while with the right I 
cut other similar steps and notches in 
succession, guarding against losing 

C 52 2 



Stickeen 

balance by glinting of the axe, or by 
wind-gusts, for life and death were in 
every stroke and in the niceness of 
finish of every foothold. 

After the end of the bridge was 
reached I chipped it down until I had 
made a level platform six or eight 
inches wide, and it was a trying thing 
to poise on this little slippery plat- 
form while bending over to get safely 
astride of the sliver. Crossing was 
then comparatively easy by chipping 
off the sharp edge with short, careful 
strokes, and hitching forward an inch 
or two at a time, keeping my balance 
with my knees pressed against the 
sides. The tremendous abyss on either 

C 53 3 



Stickeen 

hand I studiously ignored. To me the 
edge of that blue sliver was then all 
the world. But the most trying part of 
the adventure, after working my way 
across inch by inch and chipping an- 
other small platform, was to rise from 
the safe position astride and to cut a 
step-ladder in the nearly vertical face 
of the wall, — chipping, climbing, 
holding on with feet and fingers in 
mere notches. At such times one's 
whole body is eye, and common skill 
and fortitude are replaced by power 
beyond our call or knowledge. Never 
before had I been so long under 
deadly strain. How I got up that cliff 
I never could tell. The thing seemed 
C 54 ] 



Stickeen 

to have been done by somebody else. 
I never have held death in contempt, 
though in the course of my explora- 
tions I have oftentimes felt that to 
meet one's fate on a noble mountain, 
or in the heart of a glacier, would be 
blessed as compared with death from 
disease, or from some shabby lowland 
accident. But the best death, quick and 
crystal-pure, set so glaringly open be- 
fore us, is hard enough to face, even 
though we feel gratefully sure that 
we have already had happiness enough 
for a dozen lives. 

But poor Stickeen, the wee, hairy, 
sleekit beastie, think of him ! When I 
had decided to dare the bridge, and 

C 55 3 



Stickeen 

while I was on my knees chipping a 
hollow on the rounded brow above it, 
he came behind me, pushed his head 
past my shoulder, looked down and 
across, scanned the sliver and its ap- 
proaches with his mysterious eyes, 
then looked me in the face with a star- 
tled air of surprise and concern, and 
began to mutter and whine; saying 
as plainly as if speaking with words, 
"Surely, you are not going into that 
awful place." This was the first time 
I had seen him gaze deliberately into 
a crevasse, or into my face with an 
eager, speaking, troubled look. That 
he should have recognized and appre- 
ciated the danger at the first glance 
[ 56 J 



Stickeen 

showed wonderful sagacity. Never 
before had the daring midget seemed 
to know that ice was slippery or that 
there was any such thing as danger 
anywhere. His looks and tones of 
voice when he began to complain and 
speak his fears were so human that I 
unconsciously talked to him in sym- 
pathy as I would to a frightened boy, 
and in trying to calm his fears per- 
haps in some measure moderated my 
own. "Hush your fears, my boy," I 
said, "we will get across safe, though 
it is not going to be easy. No right 
way is easy in this rough world. We 
must risk our lives to save them. At 
the worst we can only slip, and then 
C 57 ] 



Stickeen 

how grand a grave we will have, and 
by and by our nice bones will do good 
in the terminal moraine. " 

But my sermon was far from re- 
assuring him : he began to cry, and 
after taking another piercing look at 
the tremendous gulf, ran away in 
desperate excitement, seeking some 
other crossing. By the time he got 
back, baffled of course, I had made a 
step or two. I dared not look back, 
but he made himself heard ; and when 
he saw that I was certainly bent on 
crossing he cried aloud in despair. 
The danger was enough to daunt 
anybody, but it seems wonderful that 
he should have been able to weigh 

c 58 : 



Stickeen 

and appreciate it so justly. No moun- 
taineer could have seen it more 
quickly or judged it more wisely, dis- 
criminating between real and appar- 
ent peril. 

When I gained the other side, he 
screamed louder than ever, and after 
running back and forth in vain search 
for a way of escape, he would return 
to the brink of the crevasse above the 
bridge, moaning and wailing as if in 
the bitterness of death. Could this be 
the silent, philosophic Stickeen? I 
shouted encouragement, telling him 
the bridge was not so bad as it looked, 
that I had left it flat and safe for his 
feet, and he could walk it easily. But 
C59 ] 



Stickeen 

he was afraid to try. Strange so small 
an animal should be capable of such 
big, wise fears. I called again and 
again in a reassuring tone to come on 
and fear nothing ; that he could come 
if he would only try. He would hush 
for a moment, look down again at the 
bridge, and shout his unshakable con- 
viction that he could never, never 
come that way ; then lie back in de- 
spair, as if howling, "O-o-oh! what a 
place! No-o-o, I can never go-o-o 
down there! " His natural composure 
and courage had vanished utterly in 
a tumultuous storm of fear. Had 
the danger been less, his distress 
would have seemed ridiculous. But in 
C6o] 



Stickeen 

this dismal, merciless abyss lay the 
shadow of death, and his heartrend- 
ing cries might well have called Hea- 
ven to his help. Perhaps they did. So 
hidden before, he was now transpar- 
ent, and one could seethe workings of 
his heart and mind like the movements 
of a clock out of its case. His voice 
and gestures, hopes and fears, were 
so perfectly human that none could 
mistake them; while he seemed to 
understand every word of mine. I was 
troubled at the thought of having to 
leave him out all night, and of the 
danger of not finding him in the morn- 
ing. It seemed impossible to get him 
to venture. To compel him to try 

[si n 



Stickeen 

through fear of being abandoned, I 
started off as if leaving him to his fate, 
and disappeared back of a hummock; 
but this did no good ; he only lay down 
and moaned in utter hopeless misery. 
So, after hiding a few minutes, I went 
back to the brink of the crevasse and in 
a severe tone of voice shouted across 
to him that now I must certainly leave 
him, I could wait no longer, and that, 
if he would not come, all I could pro- 
mise was that I would return to seek 
him next day. I warned him that if he 
went back to the woods the wolves 
would kill him, and finished by urg- 
ing him once more by words and gest- 
ures to come on, come on. 

tea 3 



Stickeen 

He knew very well what I meant, 
and at last, with the courage of de- 
spair, hushed and breathless, he 
crouched down on the brink in the 
hollow I had made for my knees, 
pressed his body against the ice as if 
trying to get the advantage of the 
friction of every hair, gazed into the 
first step, put his little feet together 
and slid them slowly, slowly over the 
edge and down into it, bunching all 
four in it and almost standing on his 
head. Then, without lifting his feet, 
as well as I could see through the 
snow, he slowly worked them over 
the edge of the step and down into the 
next and the next in succession in the 

ess n 



Stickeen 

same way, and gained the end of 
the bridge. Then, lifting his feet with 
the regularity and slowness of the 
vibrations of a seconds pendulum, as 
if counting and measuring one-two- 
three, holding himself steady against 
the gusty wind, and giving separate 
attention to each little step, he gained 
the foot of the cliff, while I was on my 
knees leaning over to give him a lift 
should he succeed in getting within 
reach of my arm. Here he halted in 
dead silence, and it was here I feared 
he might fail, for dogs are poor climb- 
ers. I had no cord. If I had had one, 
I would have dropped a noose over 
his head and hauled him up. But while 
t 64 ] 



Stickeen 

I was thinking whether an available 
cord might be made out of clothing, 
he was looking keenly into the series 
of notched steps and finger-holds I 
had made, as if counting them, and 
fixing the position of each one of 
them in his mind. Then suddenly up 
he came in a springy rush, hooking 
his paws into the steps and notches so 
quickly that I could not see how it 
was done, and whizzed past my head, 
safe at last ! 

And now came a scene! "Well 
done, well done, little boy! Brave 
boy! " I cried, trying to catch and ca- 
ress him ; but he would not be caught. 
Never before or since have I seen 
£65 ] 



Stickeen 

anything like so passionate a revul- 
sion from the depths of despair to 
exultant, triumphant, uncontrollable 
joy. He flashed and darted hither and 
thither as if fairly demented, scream- 
ing and shouting, swirling round and 
round in giddy loops and circles like 
a leaf in a whirlwind, lying down, and 
rolling over and over, sidewise and 
heels over head, and pouring forth a 
tumultuous flood of hysterical cries 
and sobs and gasping mutterings. 
When I ran up to him to shake him, 
fearing he might die of joy, he flashed 
off two or three hundred yards, his 
feet in a mist of motion ; then, turn- 
ing suddenly, came back in a wild 
t 66 ] 



Stickeen 

rush and launched himself at my face, 
almost knocking me down, all the 
time screeching and screaming and 
shouting as if saying, "Saved! saved! 
saved !" Then away again, dropping 
suddenly at times with his feet in 
the air, trembling and fairly sobbing. 
Such passionate emotion was enough 
to kill him. Moses' stately song of 
triumph after escaping the Egyptians 
and the Red Sea was nothing to it. 
Who could have guessed the capacity 
of the dull, enduring little fellow for 
all that most stirs this mortal frame ? 
Nobody could have helped crying 
with him ! 

But there is nothing like work for 

C6 7 n 



Stickeen 

toning down excessive fear or joy. 
So I ran ahead, calling him in as 
gruff a voice as I could command to 
come on and stop his nonsense, for 
we had far to go and it would soon be 
dark. Neither of us feared another 
trial like this. Heaven would surely 
count one enough for a lifetime. The 
ice ahead was gashed by thousands 
of crevasses, but they were common 
ones. The joy of deliverance burned 
in us like fire, and we ran without 
fatigue, every muscle with immense 
rebound glorying in its strength. 
Stickeen flew across everything in 
his way, and not till dark did he set- 
tle into his normal fox-like trot. At 
[ 68 ] 



Stickeen 

last the cloudy mountains came in 
sight, and we soon felt the solid rock 
beneath our feet, and were safe. Then 
came weakness. Danger had van- 
ished, and so had our strength. We 
tottered down the lateral moraine 
in the dark, over boulders and tree 
trunks, through the bushes and devil- 
club thickets of the grove where we 
had sheltered ourselves in the morn- 
ing, and across the level mud-slope 
of the terminal moraine. We reached 
camp about ten o'clock, and found a 
big fire and a big supper. A party of 
Hoonalndians had visited Mr. Young, 
bringing a gift of porpoise meat and 
wild strawberries, and Hunter Joe 
t 69 ] 



Stickeen 

had brought in a wild goat. But we 
lay down, too tired to eat much, and 
soon fell into a troubled sleep. The 
man who said, " The harder the toil, 
the sweeter the rest," never was pro- 
foundly tired. Stickeen kept spring- 
ing up and muttering in his sleep, 
no doubt dreaming that he was still 
on the brink of the crevasse; and 
so did I, that night and many others 
long afterward, when I was over- 
tired. 

Thereafter Stickeen was a changed 
dog. During the rest of the trip, in- 
stead of holding aloof, he always lay 
by my side, tried to keep me con- 
stantly in sight, and would hardly 

c 70 j 



Stickeen 

accept a morsel of food, however 
tempting, from any hand but mine. 
At night, when all was quiet about 
the camp-fire, he would come to me 
and rest his head on my knee with a 
look of devotion as if I were his god. 
And often as he caught my eye he 
seemed to be trying to say, "Was 
n't that an awful time we had to- 
gether on the glacier ? " 

Nothing in after years has dimmed 
that Alaska storm-day. As I write it 
all comes rushing and roaring to 
mind as if I were again in the heart 
of it. Again I see the gray flying 
clouds with their rain -floods and 

1 71 n 



Stickeen 

snow, the ice-cliffs towering above 
the shrinking forest, the majestic ice- 
cascade, the vast glacier outspread 
before its white mountain fountains, 
and in the heart of it the tremendous 
crevasse, — emblem of the valley of 
the shadow of death, — low clouds 
trailing over it, the snow falling into 
it ; and on its brink I see little Stick- 
een, and I hear his cries for help and 
his shouts of joy. I have known many 
dogs, and many a story I could tell 
of their wisdom and devotion ; but to 
none do I owe so much as to Stick- 
een. At first the least promising and 
least known of my dog-friends, he 
suddenly became the best known of 
C 72 -\ 



Stickeen 

them all. Our storm-battle for life 
brought him to light, and through 
him as through a window I have 
ever since been looking with deeper 
sympathy into all my fellow mor- 
tals. 

None of Stickeen' s friends knows 
what finally became of him. After 
my work for the season was done I 
departed for California, and I never 
saw the dear little fellow again. In 
reply to anxious inquiries his mas- 
ter wrote me that in the summer of 
1883 he was stolen by a tourist at 
Fort Wrangel and taken away on 
a steamer. His fate is wrapped in 
mystery. Doubtless he has left this 
C73 ] 



Stickeen 

world — crossed the last crevasse — 
and gone to another. But he will not 
be forgotten. To me Stickeen is im- 
mortal. 



